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DayBreaks for 6/20/16 – The Blink of an Eye

DayBreaks for 6/20/16 – The Blink of an Eye

From the DayBreaks archive, June 2006:

1 Corinthians 15:50-53 (NLT) – What I am saying, dear brothers and sisters, is that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. These perishable bodies of ours are not able to live forever. But let me tell you a wonderful secret God has revealed to us. Not all of us will die, but we will all be transformed. It will happen in a moment, in the blinking of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown. For when the trumpet sounds, the Christians who have died will be raised with transformed bodies. And then we who are living will betransformed so that we will never die. For our perishable earthly bodies must be transformed into heavenly bodies that will never die.

The amount of misery in a children’s hospital is breathtaking. As much as the children may be suffering, it is a valid question to ponder whether they, or their parents, have the worst of it. Listening to the stories of people from Louisiana who came for a heart operation for their child (83 days ago now, and counting) are heart-rending. The details are sketchy to me for the conversation was brief, but suffice it to say that after 3 open heart surgeries, they are only now back to where they started. They will be sent home with their little one, back to Louisiana, so he can recuperate and get enough strength to try it yet again. The surgery that was intended to heal the little one didn’t – something went dreadfully wrong and he couldn’t “tolerate” what was done, so they had to open his chest again and undo the very thing that he came here for – and with it, the hopes of the parents were put on agonizing hold.

Another family is present here who have four children. Three of them were born with some deficiency in their liver that causes it to not produce a single enzyme that is necessary for them to live a normal lifespan. Right now, the only hope is a liver transplant. One child has already had it, the other 2 will need it. Genetic screening has since revealed that their parents carried “defective” genes and that there was only a 25% chance that any child would have this problem. That 25% chance spiraled upward so far that 3 of the 4 children, including a baby born in February, are afflicted and face uncertain futures. And the parents had no idea about all this until just before the fourth one was born – the disease often doesn’t manifest itself until a child is 10-15 years of age.

As I sit here by the window at the hospital I am dumbstruck by both the suffering I see and have heard about, but also by the hope that rings in the voices of these parents. And I think to myself, “What can ever stop this?” And at that moment, I think I hear, far away and distant – as far away as heaven itself – the sound of someone warming up to play the trumpet. And I am reminded that indeed, it is true that the day will come when there will be no more bad hearts, no more failing livers or lungs, no more widows or orphans. It takes a power that only One who is truly God possesses to make such a thing a reality. But it will come. Most certainly. Wouldn’t some trumpet music be great about right now?

Revelation 6:10-11 (NIV) – They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer…

PRAYER: Father, the waiting is hard. It’s not that we doubt Your promise, it’s that we question Your timing because we can’t understand Your working. I thank You that You possess the power and the will to fix all this in a fraction of a second by a single thought. May that day be today. In Jesus’ name, Amen.